Journal: eNeuro

Article Title: BrainWAVE: A Flexible Method for Noninvasive Stimulation of Brain Rhythms across Species

doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0257-22.2022

Figure Lengend Snippet: A user-friendly BrainWAVE graphical user interface (GUI) to perform many types of experiments. We developed a user-friendly application to run a variety of experiments involving visual and/or auditory stimulation. Preprogramed tasks are found under the task dropdown menu and include four different tasks. First, a classical flicker task, with exposure to 5.5 Hz (θ-like), 40 Hz (γ-like), 80 Hz, and random nonperiodic flicker at visual, audiovisual and auditory modalities. Second, a flicker duration task, exposing subjects to a given modality and frequency of flicker for minutes at a time. Third, a flicker frequency task, which allows exposing subjects to up to 26 different frequencies of flicker of a given modality. Fourth, a single pulse evoked potential task, where subjects are exposed to single visual, audiovisual and auditory 12.5-ms pulses. The stimuli parameters are set in entry boxes for stimulus duty cycle and tone (sound frequency). The comments box is used to write and save time-stamped experiment notes during the experiment. Developed for testing in human participants, each task includes tests for comfort to determine the optimal brightness and volume of the stimuli that are comfortable to the subject (adjusted on the device), tests for safety to determine whether the intended flicker stimuli induce adverse events, experimental tasks, control occluded condition (where subjects wear a sleep mask and earplugs), and measures of brightness and volume used. See , BrainWAVE stimulator guide, for instructions on how to set-up and run an experiment using the BrainWAVE GUI.

Article Snippet: For flexible adjustment of stimulus parameters, we developed a user-friendly GUI tool in MATLAB (software and associated code in the Extended Data 1 ).

Techniques: Control

Journal: Journal of Neurophysiology

Article Title: Adjustments of Motor Pattern for Load Compensation Via Modulated Activations of Muscle Synergies During Natural Behaviors

doi: 10.1152/jn.01387.2007

Figure Lengend Snippet: Modulation of synergy activations after loading in selected regions of the behavioral space. A: before performing statistical tests for comparing of the unloaded and loaded coefficients, the onset and offset times of coefficient bursts were automatically marked by a burst detection procedure (see methods, Detecting activation bursts of synergy coefficients). Shown here is an example of a coefficient trace containing 5 bursts detected by our procedure. The onset and offset times found here agree very well with those marked manually using a Matlab graphical user interface. For each phase, statistical tests comparing unloaded and loaded burst attributes were performed on the maximum coefficient amplitude (in this example, p2 for phase a and p4 for phase b), the total burst duration (in this example, d1 + d2 for phase a and d3 + d4 + d5 for phase b), and the burst onset times (phase b only; in this example, t3, t4, and t5). B–F: in our comparisons of coefficient amplitude and burst duration, we compared the coefficients of loaded and unloaded episodes located at similar positions in the behavioral space. For each phase and for each baseline and loaded episode, the average difference between the amplitude or duration of that episode and those from its 5 closest baseline neighbors were calculated. The difference values of the loaded episodes were then compared against those from the baseline episodes and plotted in the behavioral space to assess whether modulation of the burst attribute was a function of the behavioral variety performed. In B to F, each data point represents a loaded episode; the shape of the marker indicates whether the difference value of an attribute for that episode lies below (▿), within (○), or above (▵) the interval containing 95% of the baseline difference values. In these 5 panels for different burst attributes, many loaded episodes have difference values lying above baseline. The triangles are also colored according to a blue-to-red scale to show their actual difference values. Our plots here show that a burst attribute (burst amplitude or burst duration) was modulated after loading only if the behavioral variety performed fell into selected regions of the behavioral space. See results (Modulation of synergy activations after loading in selected regions of behavioral space) for more details.

Article Snippet: Before comparison, we first divided each kick or jump episode into two segments (phases a and b ), corresponding to the extension and flexion phases, respectively; this parsing was accomplished by marking the offset time of the extensor bursts using a custom Matlab GUI.

Techniques: Activation Assay, Marker